In recent years, a movement has gained traction to replace incandescent light bulbs with lighting fixtures that employ more efficient lighting technologies. One such technology that shows tremendous promise employs light emitting diodes (LEDs). Compared with incandescent bulbs, LED-based light fixtures are much more efficient at converting electrical energy into light and are longer lasting, and as a result, lighting fixtures that employ LED technologies are expected to replace incandescent bulbs in residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
Unlike incandescent bulbs that operate by subjecting a filament to a desired current, LED-based lighting fixtures require electronics to drive one or more LEDs. The electronics generally include a power supply and circuitry to provide specially configured signals that are required to drive the one or more LEDs in a desired fashion. While currently much more efficient than incandescent bulbs, there is a continued effort to even further improve the efficiency of the LED-based lighting fixtures. As such, designers are constantly searching for ways to improve the efficiencies of both the electronics and the LEDs of the lighting fixture.